Geography in war and peace

Abstract

A ND what have they done? What have they done?' This was the question derisively asked by the educated public about the Fellows of the Royal Society in the early years of their incorporation. It is asked to-day, and in the same mocking spirit, about geographers. But before I answer it by sketching in outline some of the geographical work done in war time, and other such work in progress now that we have peace, I think it is worth while to quote from the reply which was made by the Rev. Joseph Glanvill, Rector of Bath, to those Aristotelian scoffers at the New Science in the I7th century. 'What one Age can do (he wrote) in so immense an undertaking [for to arrive at a knowledge of General Nature was the original objective of the Royal Society], what one Age can do can be little more than to remove the Rubbish, lay in the Materials, and put things in order for the Building.... We must seek and gather, observe and examine, and lay up in Bank for the Ages that come after.... True knowledge (he added) must proceed slowly, by degrees almost insensible.' The same answer serves for the defence of any young science, and particularly for the young science of geography which seeks to collect, record and interrelate the myriad phenomena which produce the regional differentiation of the Earth's surface: with the ultimate purpose of evaluating such 'circumstances of place' in relation to human history and human affairs. That 'Geography and Chronology are the Sun and the Moon, the Right Eye and the Left of all History' was the bold yet familiar saying of the Elizabethan Age; and it remains true to-day that every historian, politician or philosopher will admit that circumstances of time and place are rarely irrelevant to the events or policies he is discussing. Yet each normally regards geographical circumstances as mere 'accidents,' and as being of so obvious a character that it needs no trained geographer to point them out: much less are they thought to deserve analysis in detail. The economic historian Professor Nef, for example, referring to the freedom of England from major wars during the troubled continental period of I540-1640, expressed the opinion that geography was the principal reason for our century of peace. Yet by 'geography' he meant no more than that Britain was an island, and it is not necessary to look far to learn that mere insularity conveys no immunity, but rather that an island may become repeatedly a theatre of war. A military expert again, writing on the Balkan campaign, declared that its strategy was 'entirely a matter of geography.' True! but he understood by this no more than that owing to the very restricted corridors of movement there are certain key sites of vital importance-an analysis correct enough so far as it goes. This over-simplified view of geography, which considers its content as obvious to any intelligent person, is that generally adopted by humanists to-day, and as a consequence not one of the new schemes put forward for the advancement of general education and culture, whether by means of university degrees designed to achieve a balance between science and the humanities (as in the plan put forward by the British Association), by the devotion of more money to research, or specifically by fostering the social sciences (as recently urged in